Standing at the intersection of cattle rustling and West Virginia politics

The West Virginia Weakly Extra for Wednesday, October 23, 2024

Before I get to the meat of today’s post, a reminder that today is an important day on the election calendar — the beginning of the early voting period for the Nov. 5 election.

If you want to skip the lines on Election Day, you have until Saturday, Nov. 2 to cast your ballot at your county courthouse. There are other designated polling places. You can figure out where they are on the West Virginia Secretary of State’s website.

That said, I finally figured out why I get an unsettling urge to steal into Ohio every now and again to rustle a few cows under the cover of darkness and make off with whatever other plunder I can lay my hands on. 

It’s not out of spite because I got stuck behind an Ohio driver on the interstate. It’s not out of revenge because I’ve been forced to work with at least two insufferable Ohio State football fans over the course of my working life. It’s not even because of the jokes people from Ohio seem to love to tell about West Virginians. 

It’s because it’s in my DNA.

At this point, you might be asking yourself “what does DNA have to do with presidential elections?”

Okay, you might not be asking yourself that specific question but now that it’s out there, I should probably answer it.

You might recall that a few weeks ago, I mentioned that I was reading a history of the lawless border country of yesteryear between England and Scotland. Steel Bonnets, The Story of the Anglo-Scottish Border Reivers by George McDonald Fraser (1971 Barrie & Jenkins) is a book I wish I had read before the 2016 election because it got me thinking about how the attitudes of voters in Appalachia can be traced back to three centuries of strife along the border between England and Scotland.